Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Ministerial visits to foreign countries during which prisoner transfer agreements were discussed took place (a) between May 1997 and May 2010 and (b) since May 2010.

Ministers across government pro-actively raise the prospect of PTAs when they are visiting countries where we have significant numbers of Foreign National Offenders. The issue is also raised when Ministers and senior officials from overseas visit the United Kingdom. We do not hold a central record of all the occasions PTAs have been raised in discussion.

All foreign national offenders sentenced to custody are referred to the Home Office for them to consider deportation at the earliest possible opportunity.

The Prisoner Transfer process is just one mechanism for removing Foreign National Offenders. The number of FNOs deported under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) has increased under this Government. In 2013, we removed nearly 2,000 FNOs under ERS and under the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS), which we introduced in May 2012, we have removed over 240 FNOs to date.

Whereas this Government has begun to reduce the foreign national population in prison since 2010, between 1997 and 2010, the number of foreign nationals in our prisons more than doubled.